Category News

We are going through one of the hardest times in the 21st Century. Filled with bad news, the human species is fighting for survival. As much as we need to battle the pandemic, we must resist the climate crisis and choose sustainability as our survival pathway. Amidst the pandemic, and the loss of lives, time and happiness, let’s look at some good news for biodiversity and the ecosystem.

Coral Reefs of the Red Sea surprisingly resist climate change.
Increasing temperature and marine pollution is a threat to the coral reefs — the ecosystem of the Red Sea that protects and provides a habitat to hundreds of coastal organisms. Environmental activists and scientists, for a long time, believed in the possibility of the death of coral species due to temperature rise...

A satellite that will be critical to the understanding of climate change has blasted skyward from California.

Sentinel-6 “Michael Freilich” is set to become the primary means of measuring the shape of the world’s oceans.

Its data will track not only sea-level rise but reveal how the great mass of waters is moving around the globe.

Looking somewhat like a dog kennel, the sophisticated 1.3-tonne satellite was taken aloft from the Vandenberg base on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket.

The Sentinel is a joint endeavour between Europe and the US, and will continue the measurements that have been made by a succession of spacecraft, called the Jason-Topex/Poseidon series, going back to 1992.

These earlier missions have shown unequivocally that sea levels globally are rising, at a rate in ex...

In the South Atlantic Ocean, a tiny island of 250 people has made a significant contribution to global marine conservation by protecting a huge swath of ocean under its control.

To reach Tristan da Cunha, a UK overseas territory, one must make a seven-day boat trip from South Africa, reported National Geographic. The island chain recently announced that 700,000 square kilometers (270,271 square miles), or 90% of its territorial waters, will be designated as a large marine protected area (MPA) to safeguard the area’s rich biodiversity and endangered animals, The Guardian reported...

Ocean deoxygenation is now being recognized as major threat to future global coral reef survival.

Oxygen is life, in or out of the water, raising concerns that declining ocean oxygen stores are adding an additional environmental stress to already highly vulnerable coral reef ecosystems. While the twin effects of ocean warming and acidification are well studied, until now there has been limited understanding of how the growing threat of ocean deoxygenation may impact the ability of corals to function and ultimately form reefs.

A unique deoxygenation-reoxygenation stress experiment has given researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), University of Konstanz and University of Copenhagen insight into how corals manage deoxygenation stress and the key genes that likely dr...

Egypt ranked the second best diving world destination in 2020, according to the British Dive Magazine. The magazine said Egypt once again garnered a large proportion of the vote. Egypt gained the same position in 2019.   

It is worth noting that Egypt has previously won a number of international awards and distinguished sites in the field of diving.

In 2008, 2009 and 2010 the shores of the Red Sea won the first place in polls in the English market in diving and marine activities. In 2015, Egypt ranked second.  

October 18, 2020, Reef International Foundation specialized in diving and protecting coral reefs has chosen the Red Sea in Egypt among the best global list of diving sites, and advised its followers to visit Egypt and enjoy a unique experience in the depths of the R...

Researchers in Southern California are seeing more great white sharks than ever before, reports local broadcast network KCAL-TV.

Chris Lowe, a shark expert at California State University Long Beach, tells KCAL-TV that his lab tagged a record 38 great whites—more than three times the number they tagged last year. “This year there were just more sharks around, and the question is why,” says Lowe.

But scientists emphasize an important qualifier: The great whites cruising the Southern California coast are babies and juveniles that tend to be between four and ten feet long. These skittish young sharks stick close to shore to avoid predators and snack on stingrays and fish.

They also mostly avoid people, even as they’re becoming more numerous.

“Despite the fact that shark p...

This year’s Great British Beach Clean, hosted by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), has found that face masks and gloves were found on nearly 30% of beaches cleaned by Marine Conservation Society volunteers over the week-long event. The inland Source to Sea Litter Quest data shows a similarly alarming presence of masks and gloves, with more than 69% of litter picks finding PPE items.

“The amount of PPE our volunteers found on beaches and inland this year is certainly of concern,” said Lizzie Prior, Great British Beach Clean Coordinator at the MCS...

Joe Biden’s plan to tackle climate change has been described as the most ambitious of any mainstream US presidential candidate yet. Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath considers what he wants to do, and how he might get it done. Much will be made about Joe Biden’s pledge to re-join the Paris climate agreement, the international pact designed to avoid dangerous warming of the Earth. President Trump pulled out of the deal after the Obama administration had signed up in 2016, and during the drawn-out election count, Mr Biden confirmed that reversing the decision would be one of his first acts as president.

But key to his credibility on the international stage will be his domestic policies on cutting carbon emissions.

More radical Democrats such as congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio...

Our environment has taken a serious beating over the past few decades, with climate change accelerating at an unprecedented pace. However, in some good news coming from the natural world, scientists have just discovered a massive chunk of coral reef off the Australian coast.

On Oct.20, a vast, detached coral reef was found in the Great Barrier Reef, the first in more than 120 years. 

At more than 1,640 feet (500m) — higher than the Empire State Building — the reef was found by a team on a year-long exploration of the waters surrounding Australia. 

The reef was discovered by Australian research scientists on board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor while mapping the seafloor of the northern Great Barrier Reef. 

The base of the blade-like reef is 1...

We should be eating more jellyfish if we want to save the planet, says new research.

Scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia say we should be increasing our consumption of jellyfish worldwide, in order to protect threatened fish species and safeguard marine conservation efforts. Fishing is an ongoing threat to 96 per cent of threatened fish species, and the only ongoing threat for some, according to the IUCN.

The research found that 91 globally threatened species of fish are being legally caught on an industrial scale. Around 15 per cent of these species are traded internationally, mainly for consumption across Europe. This includes fish like haddock, Atlantic horse mackerel, and bigeye tuna. 

“It should be illegal to eat something that is threatened by extinction, ...